Recently, I opened an offline Web3 club in Shenzhen with two friends, called U Garden. On the opening day, a huge number of people showed up, creating a bustling atmosphere. Due to the large crowd, I couldn't invite many friends, but I will gradually invite everyone to come and have fun.

My collaboration with two group friends

To talk about our collaboration, we must mention WangClub.

WangClub is a crypto whale club I founded in China, currently with 500 members. The entry requirement is to hold at least 5 million worth of crypto assets, and there are many talented individuals inside. For example, some members hold 20,000 ETH, while others have 600 BTC.

My other two partners are also friends from WangClub. Those who have watched my videos know that I made a point in one of them: choosing reliable partners is very important.

So when I collaborate with others, I pay attention to the people involved. After years of ups and downs in business, I have developed a keen eye for judging character, and I am getting better at it.

My partners are not only reliable but also very capable.

One is Mr. Zhang, an old Bitcoin miner from 2018, who made his first pot of gold on the internet many years ago and has invested in various entities.

The other is Mr. Kang, who once invested in a project and made 50 million, invested 5 million in ETH with Xue Manzi in 2018, and later spent several tens of millions on a hydropower station.

Last year, I introduced Mr. Kang to Mr. Zhang, and then in the past two months, I arranged another meeting for deeper offline communication. Unexpectedly, they hit it off and co-founded U Garden together.

Eight years ago, when I had just graduated from university, I co-founded Future Finance with two partners, reaching a peak valuation of 300 million, with over 60 employees.

It was also a collaboration of three people. That time was online, enjoying the benefits of the era. This time is offline, as we seize the opportunities of the times together.

Meeting offline is very important

Meeting offline can lead to deeper collaborative connections, which is a realization I have gained over the past few years. In earlier years, I didn't like meeting people; on one hand, I was shy; on the other hand, I felt that spending time on the internet was more valuable.

But later I realized that sometimes meeting people offline is particularly important for personal growth and development.

I remember in 2018, when Minjie’s company was just acquired by a listed company, we had dim sum together in Shenzhen. That was one of the few offline meetings I had that year. She gave me a valuable life suggestion: "Zijian, you should meet more people so that everyone knows you are reliable."

Later, I gained a deeper understanding that not only should others know I am reliable, but I also need to assess whether the other party is reliable. It's often difficult to judge online, so I can only discern through offline interactions.

Through offline conversations, I can also quickly gauge the other party's capabilities, which is more conducive to advancing cooperation.

Subsequently, I have identified several reliable long-term partners through offline meetings. We work together, make money together, and cover all aspects of Web3.

Web3 version of Garage Coffee

We never intended to profit from this Web3 club in Shenzhen; it's more about gathering friends and hosting them. This creates deeper connections, allowing us to make money on other project collaborations.

In the United States, "garage" is synonymous with low-cost, high-tech entrepreneurship. Many famous companies like HP, Apple, Dell, Google, and YouTube started in garages. Even the well-known global billionaire Elon Musk initially founded Zip2 in a garage, which was eventually sold for $307 million.

Continuing this concept, 11 angel investors jointly founded Garage Coffee as a grassroots entrepreneurship platform in China, using cafes as a venue to provide low-cost office space and investment financing services for early-stage entrepreneurial teams.

The philosophy of Garage Coffee has also profoundly inspired us. Oracle China has successfully held an event at our club. Yesterday, the closed-door meeting for Music RWA was also successfully held, and the public sharing last Wednesday was a great success.

In the future, we will host various Web3 events and regularly invite guests to hold sharing sessions, creating value for the audience present.

From the perspective of physical business, we can only make money through beverage sales, venue rentals, and commercial activities. But after these sharing events, we have discovered some emerging value points.

U Garden will become a networking resource aggregation platform, just like Garage Coffee. In the future, we will also invite quality projects to conduct roadshows on the platform and invest in incubation within our capabilities.

This will not be a traditional "café," but a composite platform that integrates entrepreneurial incubation, community space, investment matching, and low-threshold office services.